Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 13

To account for the great multiplication of these insects, in the year 1839, is by no means difficult. From the beginning to the 21st of May (in the latter part of which month, it will be remembered, they appeared), the weather had been exceedingly rainy; rivers and lakes overflowed their banks and inundated immense areas of low grounds, whereby myriads of the _larvae_ and _pupae_ (which live entirely in water) of the _Libellulae_, which, under other circ.u.mstances, would have remained in deep water, and become the prey of their many enemies, fish, etc., were brought into shallow water, and hot weather following, from May 21st to May 29th, converted these shallows and swamps into true hotbeds for them. Their development into perfect insects was thus rendered rapid, so that, somewhat earlier than usual, they appeared, and in far greater, their undiminished, numbers; and, being very voracious in their appet.i.te, as well in the imago as the pupa state, they were obliged to migrate immediately to satisfy it.[474]

Mr. Gosse observed in Jamaica, Oct. 8th, 1845, a swarm of Dragon-flies in the air, about twenty feet from the level of the ground. They floated and danced about, over the stream of water that runs through Blue-fields, much in the manner of gnats, which they resembled also in their immense numbers.[475] And Rev. T. J. Bowen, on one occasion, in descending the Ogun River (in the Yoruba country, Africa), met millions of Dragon-flies, about one-fourth of an inch in length, making their way up the country by following the course of the stream.[476]

It is commonly said among us, that if a Dragon-fly be killed, there will soon be a death in the family of the killer.

Myrmeleonidae--Ant-lions.

When children meet with the funnel-shaped pitfalls of the larva of the Ant-lion, _Myrmeleon formicales_, they are wont to put their heads close to the ground and softly sing _ooloo-ooloo-ooloo_, till the larva, mistaking the sound for that of a fly escaping his trap, throws up a shower of sand to bring its supposed victim down again.

Ant-lions are held in great esteem in many sections of our country, so much so that they are not suffered to be in any way injured.

ORDER V.

HYMENOPTERA.

Uroceridae--Sirex.

In a work called "_Ephemerides des curieux de la nature_," is an observation apparently relative to this family of insects, which, if true, would be very extraordinary indeed. It is there said, that in the town of Czierck and its environs, there were seen in 1679 some unknown winged insects which, with their stings, mortally wounded both men and beasts. They fell abruptly upon men without provocation, and attached themselves to the naked parts of the body: the sting was immediately followed by a hard tumor, and if care was not taken of the wound within the first three hours, by hastily extracting the poison from it, the patient died in a few days after. These insects killed five and thirty men in this diocese, and a great number of oxen and horses. Toward the end of September, the winds brought some of them into a small town on the confines of Silesia and Poland; but they were so feeble on account of the cold, that they did but little mischief there. Eight days after, they all disappeared. These animals have all of them four wings, six feet, and carry under the belly a long sting provided with a sheath, which opens and separates in two. They make a very sharp noise in attacking men. Some of them are ornamented with yellow circles (_Sirex gigas_, or _S. fusicornis_? M. Latreille), and others are similar to them in all respects, but they have the back altogether black, and their stings are more venomous (_S. spectrum_ or _juvencus_?). The author of these observations gives an extended description of the species with the yellow circles, which he accompanies with figures, in which the character of _Sirex_ may be clearly distinguished.[477]

Cynipidae--Gall-flies.

In the spring of 1694, some Galls hung down like chains upon the oaks in Germany, and the common people, who had never observed them before, imagined them to be magical knots.[478]

A very old and common superst.i.tion is, that every oak-apple contains either a maggot, a fly, or a spider: the first foretelling famine, the second war, and the third, the spider, pestilence. Matthiolus gravely affirms this conceit to be true;[479] and the learned Sir Thomas Browne, in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, has thought it worth his while, with much gravity, to explode it. He, however, while combating one popular error, falls himself into another, for want of that philosophical knowledge of insects which later times have succeeded in obtaining. We pa.s.s this by, and hurry to his conclusion: "We confess the opinion may hold some verity in a.n.a.logy, or emblematical phancy; for pestilence is properly signified by the spider, whereof some kinds are of a very venomous nature: famine by maggots, which destroy the fruits of the earth; and war not improperly by the fly, if we rest in the phancy of Homer, who compares the valiant Grecian unto a fly. Some verity it may also have in itself, as truly declaring the corruptive const.i.tution in the present sap and nutrimental juice of the tree; and may consequently discover the disposition of the year according to the plenty or kinds of those productions; for if the putrefying juices of bodies bring forth plenty of flies and maggots, they give forth testimony of common corruption, and declare that the elements are full of the seeds of putrefaction, as the great number of caterpillars, gnats, and ordinary insects do also declare. If they run into spiders, they give signs of higher putrefaction, as plenty of vipers and scorpions are confessed to do; the putrefying materials producing animals of higher mischief according to the advance and higher strain of corruption."[480]

Moufet says: "In oak acorns and spongy apples sometimes worms breed, and astrologers presage that year to be likely to produce a great famine and dearth.... It is strange that Ringelbergius writes, _lib. de experiment_, that these worms may be fed to be as big as a serpent, with sheep's milk; yet Carda.n.u.s confirms the same, and shewes the way to feed them, _Lib. de rer. varietat_."[481]

There is a very curious operation performed at the present day in the Levant with one of these Gall-flies, which is termed _caprification_.

The object of it is to hasten the maturity of figs; and the species employed for that purpose is the _Cynips ficus caricae_, or _Cynips psenes_ of Linnaeus; it consists in placing on a fig-tree, which does not produce flowers or early figs, some of these last strung together with a thread. The insects which issue from them, full of fecundating dust, introduce themselves through the eye into the interior of the second figs, fecundate by this means all the grains, and provoke the ripening of the fruit.

This operation, of which some authors have spoken with admiration, appeared to Ha.s.selquist and Olivier, both competent observers, who have been on the spot, to be of no advantage whatsoever in fertilizing the fig;[482] and scientific men of the present day generally hold that it cannot be of any utility, for each fig contains some small flowers toward the eye, capable of fecundating all the female flowers in the interior, and moreover this fruit will grow, ripen, and become excellent to eat even when the grains are not fecundated.[483]

A curious kind of gall, produced on the rose-trees by the _Cynips rosae_, which is known by the name of _Bedeguar_, has been placed among the remedies which may be successfully employed against diarrha and dysentery, and useful in cases of scurvy, stone, and worms.[484]

The galls of commerce, commonly called _Nut-galls_, are found on the _Quercus infectoria_, a species of oak growing in the Levant, and are produced by the _Cynips Gallae tinctorum_. When gathered before the insects quit them, the nut-galls contain more astringent matter, and are then known as Black, Blue, or Green-galls. When the insects have escaped, they are less astringent, and are called White-galls. They are of great importance in the arts, being very extensively used in dyeing and in the manufacture of ink and leather. They are the most powerful of all the vegetable astringents, and are sometimes used, both internally and externally, with great effect in medicine. Those imported from Syria are the most esteemed, and, of these, those found in the neighborhood of Moussoul are considered the best.[485]

The gall of the field cirsium formerly enjoyed a very great reputation, for it was considered, when carried simply in the pocket, as a sovereign remedy against hemorrhages. It, no doubt, owed this virtue to its resemblance to the princ.i.p.al sign of this disease, the swelling of the vein.[486]

The galls of the ground-ivy, produced by the _Cynips glecome_, have been eaten as food in France; they have an agreeable taste, and to a high degree the odor of the plant which bears them. Reaumur, however, is doubtful whether they will ever rank with good fruits.[487]

The galls of the sage (_Salvia pomifera_, _S. triloba_, and _S.

officinalis_), which are very juicy, like apples, and crowned with rudiments of leaves resembling the calyx of that fruit, are gathered every year, as an article of food, by the inhabitants of the Island of Crete. This is the statement of Poumefort. Olivier confirms it, and adds: They are esteemed in the Levant for their aromatic and acid flavor, especially when prepared with honey and sugar, and form a considerable article of commerce from Scio to Constantinople, where they are regularly exposed in the market.[488]

The celebrated "Dead Sea Fruits," often called _Poma insana_, or Mad-apples, _Mala Sodomitica_, etc., which have given rise to great controversy among Oriental scholars and Biblical commentators, are produced by the _Cynips insana_ on the low oaks (_Quercus infectoria_) growing on the borders of the Dead Sea.[489]

Formicidae--Ants.

Herodotus, who wrote in the fifth century before the birth of Christ, tells the following fabulous story without the slightest trace of diffidence or disbelief: There are other Indians bordering on the City of Caspatyrus and the country of Pactyica, settled northward of the other Indians, whose mode of life resembles that of the Bactrians. They are the most warlike of the Indians, and these are they who are sent to procure the gold; for near this part is a desert by reason of the sand.

In this desert then, and in the sand, there are Ants in size somewhat less indeed than dogs, but larger than foxes. Some of them are in the possession of the King of the Persians, which were taken there. These Ants, forming their habitations under ground, heap up the sand as the Ants in Greece do, and in the same manner; and they are very like them in shape. The sand that is heaped up is mixed with gold. The Indians, therefore, go to the desert to get this sand, each man having three camels, on either side a male one harnessed to draw by the side, and a female in the middle; this last the man mounts himself, having taken care to yoke one that has been separated from her young as recently as possible; for camels are not inferior to horses in swiftness, and are much better able to carry burdens.... The Indians then, adopting such a plan and such a method of harnessing, set out for the gold, having before calculated the time, so as to be engaged in their plunder during the hottest part of the day, for during the heat the Ants hide themselves under ground.... When the Indians arrive at the spot, having sacks with them, they fill these with the sand, and return with all possible expedition; for the Ants, as the Persians say, immediately discovering them by the smell, pursue them, and they are equaled in swiftness by no other animal, so that if the Indians did not get the start of them while the Ants were a.s.sembling, not a man of them could be saved. Now the male camels (for they are inferior in speed to the females) slacken their pace, dragging on, not both equally; but the females, mindful of the young they have left, do not slacken their pace.

Thus the Indians, as the Persians say, obtain the greatest part of their gold.[490]

Concerning these remarkable Ants, Strabo and Arrian have preserved the statement of Megasthenes, who traveled in India about two centuries later than the time of Herodotus. As given by Strabo, who is somewhat more particular in his story than Arrian, it is as follows: Megasthenes, speaking of the Myrmeces (or Ants), says, among the Derdae, a populous nation of the Indians, living toward the East and among the mountains, there was a mountain plain of about 3000 stadia in circ.u.mference; that below this plain were mines containing gold, which the Myrmeces, in size not less than foxes, dig up. They are excessively fleet, and subsist on what they catch. In winter they dig holes and pile up the earth in heaps, like moles, at the mouths of the openings. The gold dust which they obtain requires little preparation by fire. The neighboring people go after it by stealth with beasts of burden; for if it is done openly, the Myrmeces fight furiously, pursuing those that run away, and, if they seize them, kill them and the beasts. In order to prevent discovery, they place in various parts pieces of the flesh of wild beasts, and when the Myrmeces are dispersed in various directions, they take away the gold dust, and, not being acquainted with the mode of smelting it, dispose of it in its rude state at any price to merchants.[491]

Nearchus says he has himself seen several of the skins of these Ants, which were as large as the skins of leopards. They were brought by the Macedonian soldiers into Alexander's camp.[492]

Pliny, as a matter of course, believed this marvelous story, and has inserted it in brief in his compilation of natural history. He adds, too, that in his time there were suspended in the temple of Hercules, at Erythrae, this Ant's horns, which were looked upon as quite miraculous for their size. He also informs us it was of the color of a cat.[493]

Strabo and Arrian, from the manner in which they refer to the statements of Megasthenes and Nearchus, no doubt disbelieved them;[494] not so, however, Pomponius Mela.[495]

M. de Veltheim thinks this animal, which, as Pliny says, "has the color of a cat, and is in size as large as an Egyptian wolf," is nothing more than, and really is, the _Canis corsac_, the small fox of India, and that by some mistake it was represented by travelers as an ant. It is not improbable, Cuvier says, that some quadruped, in making holes in the ground, may have occasionally thrown up some grains of the precious metal. Another interpretation of this story has also been suggested. We find some remarks of Mr. Wilson, in the _Transactions of the Asiatic Society_, on the Mahabharata, a Sanscrit poem, that various tribes on the mountains Meru and Mandara (supposed to lie between Hindostan and Thibet) used to sell grains of gold, which they called _paippilaka_, or _Ant-gold_, which, they said, was thrown up by Ants, in Sanscrit called _pippilaka_. In traveling westward, this story (in itself, no doubt, untrue) may very probably have been magnified to its present dimensions.[496]

The laborious life and foresight of the Ant have been celebrated throughout all antiquity, and from the wise Solomon down to the amiable La Fontaine, the sluggard has been referred to this insect to "learn her ways and be wise."[497] The Arabians held the wisdom of these animals in such estimation, that they used to place one of them in the hands of a newly-born infant, repeating these words: "May the boy turn out clever and skillful."[498] But their wisdom is magnified by all, and in the panegyrics of their providence we always find the following curious notion. Plutarch, in his Land and Water Creatures Compared, thus mentions it: "But that which surpa.s.seth all other prudence, policy, and wit, is their (the Ants') caution and prevention which they use, that their wheat and other corn may not spurt and grow. For this is certain, that dry it cannot continue alwayes, nor sound and uncorrupt, but in time will wax soft, resolve into a milky juice, when it turneth and beginneth to swell and chit; for fear, therefore, that it become not a generative seed, and so by growing, loose the nature and property of food for their nourishment, _they gnaw that end thereof or head where it is wont to spurt and bud forth_."[499]

The ancients, observing the Ants carry their pupae, which in shape, size, and color very much resemble a grain of corn, and the ends of which they sometimes pull open to let out the inclosed insect, no doubt mistook the one for the other, and this action for depriving the grain of the embryo of the plant.

Some modern writers, as Addison[500] and Pluche,[501] it is curious to observe, have fallen into this ancient error; so ancient, in fact, it is that some have supposed the Hebrew name of the Ant to be derived from it.[502] Among the poets, Prior asks:

Tell me, why the _Ant_ In _summer's plenty thinks of winter's want_?

By constant journey _careful to prepare Her stores_, and _bringing home the corny ear_, By what instruction _does she bite the grain_?

Lest, hid in earth, and taking root again, It might elude the foresight of her care.[503]

Thus Watts, also:

They don't wear their time out in sleeping or play; But _gather up corn_ in a suns.h.i.+ny day, And _for winter they lay up their stores_: They manage their work in such regular forms, One would think they _foresaw_ all the frosts and the storms, And so _brought their food within doors_.[504]

And Smart:

The _sage, industrious Ant_, the _wisest insect_, And _best economist_ of all the field: For when as yet the favorable sun Gives to the genial earth th' enlivening ray, ----All her subterranean avenues, And storm-proof cells, with management most meet, And unexampled housewif'ry, she frames; Then to the field she hies, and _on her back Burden immense! brings home the c.u.mbrous corn_: Then, many a weary step, and many a strain, And many a grievous groan subdued, at length Up the huge hill she hardly heaves it home; Nor rests she here her providence, but _nips With subtle tooth the grain_, lest from _her garner_, In mischievous fertility, it steal, And back to daylight vegetate its way.[505]

Milton also entertained this erroneous opinion:

First crept The _parsimonious Emmet, provident Of future_, in small room large heart inclos'd; Pattern of just equality perhaps Hereafter, join'd in her popular tribes Of commonalty.[506]

And also Dr. Johnson:

Turn on the _prudent Ant_ thy heedless eyes, Observe her labors, sluggard! and be wise.

No stern command, no monitory voice, Prescribes her duties or directs her choice; Yet _timely provident_ she hastes away, To s.n.a.t.c.h the blessings of a plenteous day; When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, _She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain_.[507]

There is an old Eastern proverb, that "what the Ant _collects_ in a year the monks eat up in a night," which seems to be founded on the supposition that the Ants provide themselves with stores of food.

Juvenal, also, observes, in his Sixth Satire, that "after the example of the Ant, some have learned to _provide_ against cold and hunger."[508]

"Since, therefore," says Moufet, "(to winde up all in a few words) they (the Ants) are so exemplary for their great piety, prudence, justice, valour, temperance, modesty, charity, friends.h.i.+p, frugality, perseverance, industry and art; it is no wonder that Plato, in Phaedone, hath determined, that they who without the help of philosophy have lead a civill life by custom or from their own diligence, they had their souls from Ants, and when they die they are turned to Ants again. To this may be added the fable of the Myrmidons, who being a people of aegina, applied themselves to diligent labour in tilling the ground, continual digging, hard toiling, and constant sparing, joyned with virtue, and they grew thereby so rich, that they pa.s.sed the common condition and ingenuity of men, and Theogonis knew not how to compare them better than to Pismires, that they were originally descended from them, or were transformed into them, and as Strabo reports they were therefore called Myrmidons. The Greeks relate the history otherwise than other men do; namely, that Jupiter was changed into a Pismire, and so deflowered Eurymedusa, the mother of the Graces, as if he could no otherwise deceive the best woman, then in the shape of the best creature. Hence ever after was he called Pismire Jupiter, or, Jupiter, King of Pismires....